Experience a rare moment of slowness and solitude at Alison Jacques Gallery in London. German-born, Milan-based artist, Irma Blank, presents important questions about the role of the artist and what it means to be alive.

Since the late 1960s, Blank’s singular production has focused on the recording of time as gesture. In her drawings and paintings time is inscribed as a material record of life through the material traces of the artist’s labour. Between drawing and writing, the work evokes the space of the book but encompasses paintings on canvas and paper, screenprints and drawings in pastel, pencil and ink.

Avant-testo series

Although Blank’s work is structured in series with distinct titles, she describes her practice as a continuum in which one body of work develops from another. With the Avant-testo series, Blank first disrupted the linear logic of the written word. These heavily worked ink drawings describe time as a circular movement, beginning and ending with the artist.

Avant-testo, 28-05-02, Ballpoint pen on polyester on wooden stretcher, 56 x 50cm, 2002

“I purify writing. Language has been sorely abused, so I wanted to hollow out a space of silence.”

[L] Avant-testo [R] Book crossing A

Book crossing A, Carbon copy on transparent paper, 5 pages, 125 x 37.5cm, 2015

Global Writings series sees a return to the visual parameters of language. In these works Blank draws upon an alphabet of eight consonants, legible but not comprehensible. Blank emphasises the closeness of writing to drawing, and, stripping it of content, opens it to the possibility of new meanings.

Global Writings, Marker on transparent paper, 5 elements each 29 x 21cm, 2016

Global writing series